The Whaler Boy

The Whaler Boy is a hugely engaging comedy drama set in the bleak Russian tundra by the Bering Strait. Teenager Leksha works as a whale hunter in a town where there’s little else to do and a noticeable absence of women. The internet is a new arrival and Leksha starts to obsess over a beautiful blonde woman he finds on a webcam site. His obsession leads to conflict with his closest friend and a foolhardy mission to head out towards Alaska in search of his newfound love.

‘The idea for this film came to me during a trip to the Far North of Russia. We visited one small fishing village whose young women had all recently left to spend the summer studying in the big city. The girls’ departure was a real tragedy for the local guys, who were left to spend three long months alone. Surrounded by the endless tundra, the young men were completely isolated from women—it wasn’t like the girls from the next village could just come visit, and the internet connection was poor. The only place the boys could look at girls was in an erotic webcam chat that kept freezing. It was then that I drafted the first version of this story. I decided to move the setting to Chukotka, to a small village populated by whale hunters.’

Philipp Yuryev, Director